This is a documentary on Melbourne. In the 1850s it was the fastest growing city in the world. ”They dreamt big, they built big….it was a city jumping out of its skin”.

As Melbourne grew, it became an epicentre of film culture and its hotels, restaurants and cafes became world renowned. Coupled with the city’s grand Victorian architecture, it was a first-class destination for travellers. But, in the 1950s, with the impending Queen’s visit and then the ‘56 Olympic Games, Melburnians felt a deep-seated feeling of embarrassment that they might be perceived as backward on the world’s stage. Our buildings were deemed too Victorian, too old fashioned and the demolition blitz began. Whelan The Wrecker was brought in to demolish the old city and over the next twenty years we lost many treasured buildings. With the introduction of television, the same year as the Olympic Games, the audiences for our cinemas were decimated and they too were felled by the wrecker’s ball. When Melbourne was primed to lose the Regent Theatre to make way for a city square, the population was galvanised into saving what they still had left.
This is a story of Melbourne. The Lost City of Melbourne.

We are very excited to be selected for the Melbourne International Film Festival.

This means that rewards that includes 'names in credits' will be added to the version that will play in cinemas after the festival. This is because we had to submit the latest version to MIFF on July 14.

About the filmmaker:

Gus Berger is a Melbourne based filmmaker and owner/operator of two cinema companies; the pop-up Blow Up Cinema, and Thornbury Picture House, a lively independent art-house venue.

When both of these businesses were forced to close as part of the Victorian lockdowns – Gus started to formulate a film on his city that was in a whole world of pain. Empty streets and shuttered shops. Closed schools & full hospitals. He started to look at what Melbourne was like during its boom years and was not only amazed at the pioneering and enterprising people that shaped the city at the end of the 19th century but was also shocked by the size & beauty of some of its buildings – buildings that are sadly no longer with us.

He wondered what happened to the glorious cinemas that were on every street corner and why the grand hotels that hosted Mark Twain & Agatha Christie were no longer standing. What happened in Melbourne in the mid 1950s that brought them all down?

So began a project of trawling through online photographs at the State Library of Victoria, watching old film within the NFSA archives, reading books on Melbourne history and conducting interviews with experts on Melbourne in his cinema foyer between lockdowns.

As Melbourne slowly emerged from its multiple lockdowns and Gus’ cinema was allowed to re-open, a feature documentary called THE LOST CITY OF MELBOURNE was born.

It’s a story of Marvellous Melbourne – before ‘Whelan The Wrecker Was Here’.

As with all labour of loves, they start off pretty affordable - it's only your time after all.

But eventually, costs start adding up and people need to be paid. Important people like camera operators, editors, composers... These were all crucial roles as they all helped me put together what's ended up being, in my opinion, a fascinating and important film.

As you may gather from the synopsis, I have used a lot of archive... I spent most of the periods of Covid lockdowns trawling through the incredibly rich archive of the State Library of Victoria and National Film & Sound Archive. I found so much incredible material that I know would look amazing on the big screen. Much of this has never been seen in the cinema environment. So, I didn't hold back - I really wanted to paint a vivid picture of what Melbourne looked like at the start of the 20th century, when photography was really starting to take off and to document what Melbourne and its buildings in the 1940s and 50s were like.

Together with footage from the ABC, images from News Limited and other sources, I have a big archive bill that I'd love to recoup! And, I engaged an amazing local illustrator, Laura (aka Lawz Drawz) to draw some of the buildings we have sadly lost, like The Empire Theatre and The Padua (in Brunswick), The Eastern Market and the magnificent Colonial Mutual Life Building - that once stood on the corner of Collins and Elizabeth St. I have some of her beautiful illustrations available as rewards on this page.

If I am lucky enough to exceed the goal to make this film happen, I will create a fund to help filmmakers like myself, who have started an important labour of love documentary project - to finish their film and to get it seen by a wider audience,

I cannot thank you enough for considering to help me realise my dream which is to have this film be seen in a cinema environment.

Gus